Grinnell Names Two New Endowed Faculty Chairs

Grinnell is pleased to announce the appointment of two new endowed professors, as approved by the Grinnell Board of Trustees: Shuchi Kapila, professor of English, who will hold the Maxeiner/Baumann-Payne Endowed Chair; and Nicole Eikmeier, assistant professor of computer science, who will be the first recipient of the new Luebke-Sproehnle Endowed Junior Faculty professorship. 

Being named to an endowed professorship is a profound honor that brings with it additional resources to support teaching and scholarship, says Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs Beronda Montgomery.  

“Endowed funds really give you some latitude and freedom to follow your curiosities, whether that’s working with students, research, or trying out new classes. It really does give you space to be innovative and for broader exploration,” she says. 

Shuchi Kapila is the new holder of the Maxeiner/Baumann-Payne Endowed Chair, which was established by C. William Maxeiner 1936. Maxeiner created the chair to honor the memory of his faculty mentors in history, English, and religious studies.  

“I’m honored and I feel so grateful to a place that has been so supportive,” Kapila says. 

Kapila was born in India and earned B.A., M.A., and M. Phil. degrees from Delhi University. She came to the United States to study at Cornell University, where she completed a Ph.D. in English. As a faculty member in the Department of English since 2002, Kapila focuses on British Colonialism and 19th-century fiction and the literatures of South Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa. Her first book, Educating Seeta: The Angle-Indian Family Romance and the Poetics of Indirect Rule, was published in 2010.   

She also has an interest in memory studies, narrative theory, and the form of the novel, Victorian and, contemporary. In addition, Kapila teaches feminist theory and feminist writing, including transnational feminism. She recently completed her second book, a study of the the Indian Partition of 1947, Learning to Remember: Postmemory and the Partition of India. 

Nicole Eikmeier is the first to hold the new Luebke-Sproehnle Endowed Junior Faculty professorship, made possible by the generosity of Sarah Luebke Sproehnle ’00. 

Montgomery explains that the Luebke-Sproehnle professorship seeks to encourage and support faculty who represent groups that have been historically underrepresented in computer science (including persons who are Black, Indigenous, women, people of color, etc.). “It really speaks both to the excellent work that Nicole is doing as an individual, but also to the work that she’s doing as a mentor and a role model.” 

“I’m so pleased to be working for an institution that provides substantial support for faculty,” Eikmeier says.  

Eikmeier earned a B.A. in computer science and mathematics at Concordia College, as well as a Ph.D. in mathematics from Purdue University. She joined the faculty of the Department of Computer Science in 2019 and teaches courses such as Automata, Formal Languages, and Computational Complexity; Networks and Matrix Computations; Functional Problem Solving; Analysis of Algorithms; and more.  

Eikmeier’s research is interdisciplinary, primarily situated between math and computer science in network science, which studies complex interactions such as modeling and algorithms on graphs and hypergraphs.  

An installation ceremony for the newly endowed chairs is planned for Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024 at 4:15 p.m. in Herrick Chapel.